BKKBike09

Looks like a brake fire in RH main gear after the rejected take off. Full pax / fuel close to V1 would mean heavy braking and a lot of kinetic energy to turn into heat.

'Fun' factoid: you can link M-Flow to an EasyPass account ... if you're a Thai national. Foreigners, however, have to set up credit card or direct debit payment for M-Flow (unless things have changed in the past 6 months or so, which is always possible).

Yawn. Work Permit 'Crackdown' #37 or whatever ... A week from now (if even that long) there'll be a different crackdown. I saw a naked white guy walking down lower Sukhumvit at lunchtime one day last week. He was clutching some clothes but I couldn't see a work permit.

He was in the Macau gaming industry for a long time: latterly was chairman of HKEX listed South Shore Holdings, which took over Stephen Hung's 'The 13' casino/hotel project. South Shore is in debt to the tune of hundreds of millions. Thailand is a good place to hang out because unless a foreign agency requests action, the local authorities have very little interest in pursuing foreign white collar criminals who haven't harmed Thais/Thailand.

Classic! Love it. I have plenty of letters left over, so improved (?) your suggestion as follows. Now to find the double-sided tape.

It bothers me greatly when I see parents inflicting masks on toddlers here: drumming into them "be scared all the time"; "people who don't wear masks are selfish and bad", "thinking for yourself is bad". If the parents want to wear them, so be it, but leave the toddlers out of it. "Oh but we look so cute at Paragon in our matching floral print masks".

Task for the day completed - debadging, except for the 'EV'. Say goodbye to 'Build Your Dreams' and 'Atto 3'. Only took 5 hours with a mallet, chisel and a rotary sander ... (just kidding! 30 mins with a hairdryer, dental floss, eraser wheel and alcohol)

Thanks. I'll have a look. I agree rotating screen is a bit superfluous, given the screen is pretty big so Nav in Landscape mode seems fine to me. The dashcam records automatically on a loop AFAIK but being able to take a snapshot might be useful. Things I do like about the Atto are the flat-bottom steering wheel (the whole steering wheel has quite a premium feel to it) and the glass roof. Makes the interior very light and airy. I quite like the interior colour scheme but there's a lot of white, which I can see becoming dirty quite quickly. Amusing fact: in Europe, the fake leather is actively marketed by BYD as 'Vegan leather' ...

You've more patience than me if 90 kmh is 'highway speeds'! 110-120 kmh for me (and that feels slow compared to my other car). At least with the BYD EV maybe I won't get so many speeding tickets.

Outstanding! Many thanks. Gone in 30 seconds. Doesn't bring up any visible error messages and 'Vehicle Status Check' comes back as all good.

That would be very interesting and - if priced at that level - would really shake up the 'cheaper end' of the local EV market, given Honda's status and brand loyalty here. I think those ranges sound optimistic though: I reckon as a basic rule of thumb work on 15kWh / 100 km. We're lucky its never very cold in Thailand - quite interesting range info here for loads of EVs: https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/range-electric-car

NO! You have never been immune after the jags and you still pass it on if you have had the jag or top up jags! This was made public last year 10th October, 2022; "Janine Small, president of international markets at Pfizer told the EU Parliament that Pfizer had never carried out any transmission tests after vaccine (the phrase "The Speed Of Science" was born) and turns out they never did which just goes to show never listen to politicians or media because that is where the narrative was pushed. One just has to look at how many times Biden has had covid. My wife has had all the vax going before she had to stop working due to health (can't say what caused her health deterioration) got covid after vax 4 and even though her symptoms were that of a cold I obviously got it after 2 vax (about 12 month prior) and my symptoms lasted minutes. Both my children had no symptoms and never vaxed. Edited 15 hours ago by BritScot Yeah - I know. I was being sarcastic. I find it interesting that China has been aggressively masking for ages and yet look how Covid is now spreading there. I'm sure masks do a reasonable job of reducing risk of infection when used properly, but as soon as they're not (ie same mask worn all day, on off on off on off), or not worn at all when around other people (ie eating), all bets are off. If you're not going to wear one constantly, and avoid being near anyone not wearing one whenever you are not wearing one, frankly what's the point when Omicron is so obviously a) very very easy to catch and b) not at all serious for the vast majority of people.

So ... if you've had Covid or some vax shots, you're now immune. But still need to wear a face mask indoors. Keep up the good work Doc ...

Thanks. 1. SatNav: I think it's only in English. I've used it a couple of times in Bangkok and it seems pretty good. I don't recall whose Nav it is (not Garmin or any name I recognised). 2. When I picked up car dealer told me Apple CarPlay had been added; not sure about Android Auto. I haven't used either. It has Spotify too. 3. I believe a BYD phone app is coming soon. The charger was installed yesterday and that has an app to monitor charging. I couldn't make phone connect to charger but that's just me being dense. Also, it charges at about 6 kwh so roughly one hour charging = 10%. I'm not particularly interested in the detailed stats etc - more overnight plug n forget for me. 4. Voice commands are only in English or Chinese AFAIK. I turned them off. The car does OTA updates via its own cellular data connection. It's done two since I picked it up. Not sure what they've done! Each took about 20 mins and car can't be driven while they're happening. However you can schedule the update for time/date of your choice (ie middle of the night) which I did, and it duly did it then. I do find it a little scary how much information may be being sent back to China: it implies things like phone contacts are not captured but who really knows. You can turn off the data connection and I think I may well do that (but perhaps that horse has already bolted ...)

As per others - can you post some pics?

Picked up BYD Atto last Friday. I'll post something more fulsome once I've driven it around for a couple of weeks etc, but first impressions are broadly very positive. It's well built, comfortable, mostly extremely quiet, loaded with tech (too much IMHO), has a full glass sunroof with a shade, reasonable sized boot, rear a/c vents, built-in dashcam ... all in all, for THB 1.2 million, very happy so far. There are 3 drive modes: Eco, Normal, Sport aka Sedate, Acceptable, Sprightly. It's claimed 0-100 is 7.3 secs. Don't know if it does that, but floor it in Sport and it responds quickly for a 1.7 tonne vehicle. Regen has two settings, neither of which does much to slow car below about 40-50 kmh. Faster than that, the High setting is pretty good at decelerating the car. The adaptive cruise control works okay, but only okay (it's not great at smooth decel and pickup). The price includes 1 year free insurance, 8 years warranty / free servicing (you pay for consumables like brake pads) and a free 7 kw home charger. Film is extra. I'm also paying to have the charger installed this week by a third-party because the BYD free service currently has a long wait (likely not possible this month). This will void the wall charger 1 year warranty, but I can't be ar5ed to go and sit at a charger in Bangkok while I wait for the free install. To the all-important range question. Typically the 60 kw battery version is stated to be good for 420 km (here they push the higher 480 km result from some other standard). I picked up car at 98% and since then have done 300 km and am at 22%. That's 90 km of Bangkok stop start ground level commuting including after dark, and a 210 km day time day trip to the Bang Phra reservoir from Bangkok, on Highway 7. I did 110-120 kmh all the way on the highway with a/c at 23 and music on, down one way in Eco with High regen, and back Normal with Standard regen. I also did 20 km around the lake pushing pretty hard on the twisties in Sport. Add to the battery usage 45 minutes one evening of a family member sitting in the car with the a/c going playing Spotify through the entertainment system (that only knocked 1% off the charge) I reckon range of at least 350 km on a full charge would be a reasonable expectation for anyone who wants to drive with a bit of lead in their foot. The stock tyres get a lot of stick from many reviewers because they're Atlas Batman (exactly) 215/55 on 18 inch wheels. My view is may as well give them a chance rather than bin them immediately as some seem to have done. All I can say is that they're not noisy at highway speeds (or the cabin is very well insulated), they don't squeal or feel skittish under heavy acceleration, and they performed perfectly adequately on the Bang Phra twisties. The Atto isn't a sports car, it's a heavy medium size family car. I figure it's 6 months to the rainy season so run them at least till then. Things I don't like: - it makes an irritating whirring noise between 1-30 kmh 'for safety', which you can't disable (hence comment that it's 'mostly extremely quiet') - it doesn't have a space-saver spare, only a foam inflation kit; i'm investigating whether I can fit a space saver under the tray in the boot (the tray has a high and low position) - seems like some So is BEV the future? I think yes, but I do agree with the concerns about the charging infrastructure. I think a BEV is great if you can home charge and rarely if ever make long trips. But when it comes to those long-distance journeys away from home? The BEV strategy right now seems to be large heavy battery with more range, the range being to offset the charging time required. Let's hope the tech moves to a point where the battery is smaller and lighter, and maybe only offers a modest range of 150-200 km BUT can be charged to say 50%+ in 10-15 mins, say through induction systems in normal car park spaces etc. Who knows.

He should also be charged with various fashion offences, given his appalling dress sense. PS - his older brother is a politician and head of the New Economics Party (who they? Ed.)

Doubtless like before it (proof of vaccination) will only apply to foreign visitors / residents, not to Thais coming back to Thailand. Which makes it all pretty pointless, especially if there's no requirement for vaccination to be no older than x months etc (not that I want to give them any ideas on that front).

Actually it says the SWAT guys and many other colleagues in tight brown uniforms went to the suspect's house and waited 3 hours before it became apparent that he wasn't home. Then they issued the arrest warrant. It also says that road rage is suspected as the cause, and that the previous week the suspect had argued with a foreigner (doesn't make clear if the same person as the victim) in the housing development and had threatened that person with a gun.

Andrew's service flying helos as part of the ship anti-missile screen in the Falklands was contemptible, was it? Maybe you're too young to remember. Sheffield, Coventry, Antelope, Ardent, Atlantic Conveyor, Sir Galahad - all lost. It was a very high threat environment. Andrew - like Harry - won a great deal of (deserved) respect for his military service. Then, over the last 25 years, he's squandered it all and is now rightly out of the picture. He's now 62. Harry's just getting started: he's 38 - let's see where he is at 62.

I always liked Prince Philip precisely because, while he didn't go out of his way to deliberately cause offence, he didn't spend too much trying to be diplomatic. On one occasion he got off a long flight only to be asked by a journo "how was your flight sir?". He responded: "Have you ever been on an aeroplane? Well, it was just like that".

So, kinda like ...

The link you post above talks about the Sovereign Grant Act but fails to mention that government gets the money back from the Crown Estate. "The Sovereign Grant Act 2011 came into effect on 1 April 2012. It sets the single grant supporting the monarch’s official business, enabling The King to discharge his duties as Head of State. It meets the central staff costs and running expenses of His Majesty’s official household – including official receptions, investitures and garden parties. It also covers maintenance of the Royal Palaces in England and the cost of travel to carry out royal engagements such as opening buildings and other royal visits. In exchange for this public support, The King surrenders the revenue from The Crown Estate to the government. Over the last ten years, the revenue paid to the Exchequer is £3 billion for public spending." https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sovereign-grant-act-2011-guidance/sovereign-grant-act-2011-guidance You said Prince Harry had a choice between paying his own way or 'sponging off the public purse'. You're still wrong on the 'sponging off the public purse'.

Prince Harry is shaping up to be Prince Andrew Mk 2, although hopefully there won't be any allegations of fun and games with 17-year olds. Both of them served their country in the armed forces in combat zones, which is more than can be said for any of their siblings. Andrew in the Falklands, Harry in Afghanistan. Both deserved respect and credit for that, and both received it. Both then did a great job of squandering it. Moreover ... 1. Both have a strong sense of entitlement. 2. Neither is an intellectual titan 3. Both married women able to twist them round their little finger 4. Both have had to watch as they slipped further down the line of succession and therefore importance/relevance within the institution 5. Both aspire to lifestyles beyond their means The last point is the one that will cause Harry to come a cropper, as it has Prince Andrew. The jet-set lifestyle is not possible on the income received as a working royal ... but there are plenty of very rich people who are only too happy to provide it in order to parade a royal 'friendship'. And before you know it, an Epstein, or a Bankman-Fried or whoever is your new best buddy ...

"sponging off the public purse"? Wrong. The expenses of the spares like Harry come from the Privy Purse, funded by Duchy of Lancaster, or from Charles via Duchy of Lancaster. https://www.duchyoflancaster.co.uk/financial/ No taxpayers money there. Harry has saved the taxpayer a good whack by shunting off to USA and having his Met security pulled. The late Queen also decided years ago to reimburse the public purse for all Civil List expenditure (the expenses/allowances for all 'working' members of the Royal Family apart from her, Prince Philip and the Queen Mum). The Civil List was done away with some years back and now the funding comes from the Crown Estates.